1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a damper assembly of a high-pressure fuel pump, and more particularly, to a damper assembly of a high-pressure fuel pump for reducing fuel pulsation, which is capable of reducing the pulsation of a fuel transferred to the high-pressure fuel pump to stabilize the supply of the fuel, having a simplified structure to minimize an installation space and curtailing manufacturing costs.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Technology for gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines has been developed to improve fuel economy and performance of gasoline engines.
Generally, GDI gasoline engines may have a higher compression ratio than conventional gasoline engines.
In such GDI gasoline engines, a fuel pressure is a very important factor, and thus the GDI gasoline engines require a high-performance high-pressure fuel pump.
The high-pressure fuel pump serves to directly inject a fuel supplied from a fuel tank into a combustion chamber through an injector by converting a pressure of the fuel into a high pressure required for the GDI gasoline engine.
Such a high-pressure fuel pump includes a housing 10 and a piston 20, as shown in FIG. 1.
The housing 10 has an inlet port (not shown) formed at one side thereof for allowing a fuel to flow in through the inlet port, and an outlet port 11 formed at the other side thereof for discharging the fuel under a controlled pressure.
Here, the inlet port is, for example, coupled to a fuel supply unit such as a fuel tank to receive the fuel, and the outlet port 11 is, for example, coupled to a fuel rail in which a plurality of injectors coupled to a cylinder head are installed.
The piston 20 is installed at a lower end of the housing 10 to apply a pressure to the fuel flowing in through the inlet port.
In this case, since a pressure of the fuel may be altered by driving the injectors or the high-pressure fuel pump, a pulsation phenomenon may occur. Therefore, the fuel may be unstably transferred due to the driving of the injectors or the high-pressure fuel pump.
Accordingly, a damper assembly 30 configured to reduce the pulsation of the fuel transferred to the high-pressure fuel pump is provided in the high-pressure fuel pump.
The damper assembly 30 is installed onto a channel configured to couple the piston 20 to the inlet port to reduce the fuel pulsation.
Such a damper assembly 30 generally includes a damper 31 formed in a disk shape, a retainer ring 32 arranged under the damper 31 to support the damper 31 upwards, and a damper spring 33 arranged above the damper 31 to support the damper 31 downwards.
In the case of such a damper assembly 30, when the fuel transferred from the outside of the high-pressure fuel pump due to the driving of the injectors or the high-pressure fuel pump is transferred over the damper 31, a pulsation phenomenon may be reduced as the fuel passes over the damper assembly.
However, the conventional damper assembly 30 has a drawback in that a large installation space is required since the separate parts such as the retainer ring 32 and the damper spring 33 should be used to support the damper 31 interposed therebetween, resulting in increased manufacturing costs due to an increase in the number of parts.